


Ring o’ ring of roses

by burgundytwill (VinWrit)



Series: Mini-fic Monday (Wednesday) [2]
Category: Slow Show (Mia-ugly), Warlock (TV) - Fandom, Warlock-the-scripts script!’verse
Genre: Gen, Minific, Plague, from the script!verse, prompt-fic, slight angst, this one’s slightly sad I’m not gonna lie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:41:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23134117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VinWrit/pseuds/burgundytwill
Summary: And after everything goes away, people forget, put new rushes down on the floor, and carry on until the next time. It’s the way of things, here.
Relationships: The sharp family & Neath (warlock), Ursula Sharp & Elizabeth Sharp (warlock)
Series: Mini-fic Monday (Wednesday) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660177
Kudos: 2





	Ring o’ ring of roses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nadzieja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadzieja/gifts).



> For Nads, based on a prompt sent to the warlock script-blog, @warlock-the-scripts on tumblr.

Ursula gets woken up early most days. The birds used to rouse her, but since the start of winter the screech-owl has vanished from its nest opposite her window. 

Her rooms are above the inn her daughter keeps; the Sharp family are Neath people, born and bred. Every one of them started out here, and most die here, too. They have a monopoly on graveyard plots; their mausoleum was filled long ago. 

She toes into her old boots. They’re stout, stump-heeled, worn into a comfortable shape and re-soled and repaired until little of the original leather remains. 

That’s okay. All things age. 

The smoke above her town gets thicker every day, as the plague-pits get fuller. It’s a creeping thing; crawls into lungs, freezes a man from his insides out; until all that’s left is a husk, a shell. Each day, someone new is daubing red paint onto their threshold and bolting themselves inside their houses, waiting to see if they live or die. 

There is no cure. 

Elizabeth; Elizabeth has told her before that this feels like being Atlas - the responsibility clings to her, weighs down slumping shoulders even more. While her mother stands straighter under scrutiny, the younger woman bows to it. The Sharps are Neath people, and they have a legacy of stepping up to the front when times are hard. 

(Some days even Ursula agrees that it’s too far of a leap to make, even though she vows not to sit idle. )

Foxten in his apocathary’s workshop helps where he can; but the nearest doctor is ten days’ ride away, and chamomile lotion can only do so much. The daisy season is nearly over. Soon they will rely on prayer alone. 

Ursula stretches. Though the birds have vanished, she still wakes at dawn. She’s got a duty, after all. 

She goes down, out of the inn, and takes last night’s stew pot with her, leaving a bowl on every shuttered doorstep for those who cannot leave their homes. She always comes back to collect them. 

When the food is left cold and uneaten, she knows to call in a searcher, and to start rolling out shrouds. 

Martha Wooley had volunteered to help with the searching, and Ursula had let her help with a heavy heart. It was widow’s work, after all.

_It’s too soon_ , Ursula thinks. She knows how plague years go. She’s survived enough of them. 

(And after everything goes away, people forget, put new rushes down on the floor, and carry on until the next time. It’s the way of things, here.) 

Ursula makes her rounds, and, after a while, Elizabeth joins her. The Inquisition men on every corner let them pass unharried, clutching posies to their noses. 

Sometimes, she wonders why this is allowed to happen, or which of the universe’s cold clockworks and machinations had set this upon them. The new priest says that it’s a punishment, but she’s unwilling to believe him.

The fires burn brighter every day, while the living no longer dance or drink in the streets. It feels like Armageddon, like the end of time and reality itself. 

Nature turns on them. The trees are dying. There is not enough firewood, and the fires burn, burn, brighter and brighter and  hungrier . 

And Neath keeps fighting. But the songbirds are gone. William is gone. 

All they can do is wait, and hope. 


End file.
